1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to computer network environments. More specifically, the present invention relates to directory services within a computer network.
2. Description of Related Art
Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) is a protocol that facilitates access to specialized directory servers within a computer network. LDAP provides a referral model which allows client computers to ask an LDAP server a question and be told to contact another server. The contacted server can return any of the requested information which it possesses. In addition, the contacted server returns a list of other servers which might contain the requested information. The LDAP clients, in this case, are responsible for contacting all of the other servers to complete the search request.
One of the major problems associated with the referral mechanism is that the user needs to bind to other servers, with different Distinguished Names (DN's) existing on these servers. Without this binding, the referred search becomes an unauthenticated request. Unauthenticated requests make managing multiple directories impossible.
Therefore, it would be desirable to have a method which allows a user to manage information stored on all servers without having his or her account physically reside on every server.